A Matter of Oaths

by Helen S. Wright

  “You look like my superior,” Yulenda was saying. “He may want to talk to you and Commander Rallya himself, so I’ll have her collected and brought here, when you tell me where to find her.”

  “The Archives,” Joshim said automatically. “Trying to find out who you are. And Yuellin’s lover.” How much of Rafe’s love for him had been an echo of his love for the stranger who shared his face? Gods, as if that mattered now, when there was no guarantee that he was even alive … Let us get him back safely, Joshim prayed, before we start dividing him between us.

  “You’d better warn whoever approaches Rallya to be careful,” he remembered to warn Yulenda. “She’s ready for trouble. One of Julur’s agents was following us this morning. That’s why we split up.”

  “Tall woman, with you when you entered the palace?” When Joshim nodded, Yulenda frowned. “She’s mine. When we’ve time, I’d like to know how you spotted her. It shouldn’t happen, at least not when she’s trailing amateurs. But Rallya’s right to be careful. Braniya and her people are very thorough. Too much interest in Lin’s history will bring somebody around to ask why.”

  * * *

  Rallya dismissed the Court Record (300-325/5008) from her screen and called up the next in the sequence, cursing under her breath at the procession of old and worthless news. Aristos getting born and dying, making alliances and breaking them, winning court appointments and losing them … Everything, in fact, except the one item she was searching for, the appointment of a regent for the underage heir to Buhklir.

  Getting the date of Yuellin’s succession had been simple; his obituary gave it, and the name of his cousin, and the names of the aristos who had attended his memorial rites. But there was no indication that one of the aristos had meant more to him than the others, that any of them had attended out of more than duty, in spite of the glowing words of the death-notice. Held in deep affection at court and sorely missed … Rallya snorted derisively; after she was dead, they would tell similar lies about her.

  She had just started to scan the next Court Record when there was a quiet tap on the door of her carrel. As she turned to look, the door opened and a stranger stepped inside without waiting to be invited.

  “Excuse me, Commander. I must ask you to come with me,” he said politely.

  “Not without knowing who you are,” Rallya said flatly. “And why.” There was no getting past him to the door, and her ears told her that he had at least one companion outside; they did not intend to lose her again. She wondered anxiously what had happened to Joshim and, in passing, how they had found her.

  “Emperor’s security police, ma’am. That’s all I can tell you here.”

  Which Emperor? she asked herself sourly, as if she did not know. “Prove it,” she challenged him.

  “My identification, ma’am.”

  Rallya took the proffered card, handed it back after a close inspection. “Picture looks like you,” she conceded. “And the card looks impressive. It could be the real thing.” She was willing to bet that it was close enough to convince anybody who came in response to a call for help. And though it seemed that they wanted to take her away without attracting attention, if she refused to move they might find it worthwhile taking her out unconscious or dead. In neither of those states would she have any chance to escape. So let him think that she believed him, that she would go with him meekly.

  “Just let me finish up here…” she suggested.

  “No need for that, ma’am. One of my colleagues will tidy up after we’re gone.”

  To make sure that there was no record of the material she had been consulting, no doubt, in case there were questions asked after her disappearance. Rallya stood up slowly, deliberately favouring her hip. If they had not been fully briefed, they might believe that she was lame, an advantage that she could use later.

  “I’ll have to search you, ma’am. Orders,” he said apologetically.

  Rallya smiled wintrily. “I understand.” She cooperated in silence during the search, turning around clumsily when asked.

  “This way, ma’am,” he said when he was satisfied that she was unarmed.

  He had two companions outside. One of them slipped into the carrel that Rallya had just vacated, the other took up position behind her. Her original captor walked beside her, slowing his pace to accommodate her limp. It was a short walk to the entrance down the dimly lit exhibition hall with its displays of ancient documents. As they stepped outside, the intensity of the light made them all blink. Rallya took her chance before her captors recovered and swerved away from them down the broad gentle steps to the plaza below, pushing through the crowds of tourists, seeking shelter in their numbers.

  “Police! Stop her!”

  The shot that Rallya expected did not come. Held off by fear of hitting someone else in the crowd? One of the tourists made a half-hearted grab for her; she kicked him on the knee and left him clutching that instead. The next one might not be so easy to dissuade … She grabbed the nearest person that was smaller than her and too slow to get out of her way, wrapped an arm around his throat and jabbed two fingers into his back, praying he was scared enough to take them for a weapon.

  “Back away, or I kill him!” she shouted harshly.

  The crowd moved back reluctantly, clearing a wide circle around her and her hostage.

  “Stay where I can see you!” she ordered her one-time captors. Not that they cared about the boy’s life, but they had a role to play and the presence of the crowd would make them obey. She hoped.

  “It’s a bluff! She hasn’t got a gun!” the one who had searched her shouted.

  “You missed the knife in my boot!” Rallya yelled back. If there had been such a knife, only a contortionist could have removed it on the run, but the crowd was so scared they would believe anything and Julur’s agents had not had clear sight of her since she broke away from them.

  “You can’t get away!” he threatened, a bolt-beamer now in plain sight.

  “Am I trying to?” Rallya said scornfully. “I’m going to wait here until the real police come to see what’s happening. I assume somebody’s had the sense to call them.”

  The boy in her arms was trembling; belatedly she realized that she was throttling him and she relaxed her hold just enough to let him breathe. No point in saving herself to face a murder charge.

  The hum of an aircar cut through the angry murmuring of the crowd. Reinforcements for the enemy or support for her? By the look on the faces of Julur’s people, by their sudden inclination to slip away out of sight, it was nobody that they welcomed.

  “Emperor’s security police! Nobody move!”

  The announcement broadcast across the plaza was enough to sway the crowd. Julur’s agents found their way blocked, the beamers wrenched from their hands, everyone a hero now that no real risk was involved. Rallya let her captive go, judging the crowd might take it upon themselves to force her if she did not. He ran for the dubious shelter of his friends’ arms, as if she might change her mind if he lingered too long in her vicinity.

  “Commander Rallya?” The woman who stepped out of the aircar was the woman Joshim had spotted that morning. “You’re wanted at the Palace. Your colleague is waiting for you there.”

  Rallya rubbed at her hip, which was taking its revenge for the unexpected exercise, and watched Julur’s agents being hustled into the aircar. How in hell had Joshim got himself into the palace?

  “If I ask you for proof, you’ll only show me another of those fancy identity cards,” she told the woman tartly. “Well, I suppose you can’t all be on the same damned side.”

  The resemblance was impossible, Rallya decided, watching Joshim and Lord Dhur study each other. Face, height, build—all so close, they could be twins. What were the odds against such a coincidence? Not just of their appearance, but of their role in Rafe’s life? She shivered; she was too old to start believing that it was not a coincidence. Far too damn old.

  “It’s disturbing,” Dhur said into the unea
sy silence. “I almost didn’t believe Yulenda. Having lived with this face so long, to see it on somebody else…”

  Their voices were not the same, Rallya heard with relief; that one difference made the similarities less intense.

  “You have something else in common,” she reminded them, calling their attention to the reason they were there.

  “Somebody very precious to both of us,” Dhur agreed.

  “And currently very precious to the Old Emperor,” Rallya said sharply. “If the little scut is still alive.”

  “He is,” Dhur said, with an irritating and totally unfounded confidence. “If Julur found a reason to keep him alive for ten years, he won’t kill him wantonly now.” He gestured around the room to which they had been brought. “Please, sit down. You weren’t hurt at the Archives earlier, Commander Rallya? You seem to be limping quite badly.”

  Now she knew who had honed the edge on Rafe’s tongue, Rallya thought as she seated herself with icy precision opposite Dhur, disciplining herself not to favour her hip.

  “Nothing was damaged at the Archives earlier. Except the secrecy I’d hoped for,” she admitted grudgingly.

  “I think not even that,” Yulenda put in. “I sent a team to clean out Rhalan’s nest as soon as the bio-locks proved Lin was still alive; we netted Rhalan himself on the plaza. And a F’sair diplomatic courier was involved in an unfortunate accident at the shuttleport an hour ago; while he was receiving medical care, the contents of a certain unmarked message capsule were edited. It will be several days before Braniya realizes I’ve taken Rhalan out of circulation and asks herself why.”

  “That may be enough.” Dhur pressed the points of his fingers together and looked at them consideringly. “If we move quickly, we can be in a position to stop Julur before he does anything irreversible to Lin.”

  “Rafe isn’t important,” Rallya told him bluntly. “If we can get him back safely, it will be a bonus, but…”

  “On the contrary,” Dhur interrupted her. “The only important thing is to retrieve him safely.”

  “I doubt the New Emperor would agree with that,” Rallya snapped. “Or that you’ve the authority to make that decision for him.”

  “Let us consider your authority first, Commander Rallya,” Dhur said softly, leaning back in his seat. “You’re offering the support of the Guild of Webbers to strip power from the Old Emperor and hand it to the New. Tell me, is control of the Guild included in the bargain, or do you intend to keep that for yourself? And how much support do you have in the Guild, outside your own web-room full of Oath-breakers? What gives you the right to alter the balance of power in the Empires?”

  “Should I let Julur get away with Oath-breaking?” Rallya countered. “Should I let him worm his way into control of the Guild, with all that would mean for the balance of power? No, Lord Dhur. Control of the Guild is not included in the bargain, neither for Julur nor for Ayvar nor for me. But I will have its support, once I expose Julur’s Oath-breaking. And if the New Emperor doesn’t think that’s important enough to take action over, the Guild will be reconsidering its loyalty to him too.”

  “I believe you.” Dhur sounded more amused than anything, to Rallya’s added fury. “Now we’ve established that your authority is spiritual whereas mine is only temporal, shall we try to agree a set of common goals? Given that I insist on Lin’s safety, and you insist on the Guild’s independence and renegotiation of the Emperors’ Oaths.”

  “Which will include an end to the war in the Disputed Zone,” Rallya said promptly.

  “Agreed.”

  “You can’t…”

  Rallya stopped, belatedly recognising the sound of total self-certainty. Dhur did have the right to negotiate with her; he was doing it on his own behalf. She looked at him, past the likeness to Joshim, past the infuriating patience with which he waited for her to realize exactly how much authority he did have. How had she expected an immortal to look? she asked herself angrily. Not like Joshim, and that had blinded her to the preternatural depth of this man, his almost physical aura of power. She laughed aloud, first ruefully at herself, then more forcefully at Rafe’s hubris. The New Emperor’s lover. It made truth of that ridiculous obituary—held in deep affection at court—and it made sense of Julur’s interest in him.

  Or partial sense. “I understand now why Julur might have wanted Rafe dead,” she said, “but why take the risk of snatching him? And why keep him alive this long?”

  “It wouldn’t have been enough for Julur, just to kill him,” Ayvar claimed. “He would have wanted to own him, to have the pleasure every day of knowing that he had stolen something from me and made it his. And the pleasure of knowing that I didn’t know what Lin was suffering,” he added bleakly.

  “Why did you put Rafe in that position?” Joshim demanded. If he was impressed by his doppelganger’s identity, it did not show, to Rallya’s approval.

  “I held out against him for three years,” Ayvar said mildly. “He was sixteen when he first tried to seduce me.” A smile at the memory. “He was fighting for survival and he needed a friend more powerful than his uncle. He decided it was going to be me. I took his side, but I didn’t take him into my bed—I knew what the dangers for him would be if I did. He isn’t the first lover that Julur has reached.”

  He released the pressure on his fingers, as if he had only just remembered what he was doing, and watched the colour flood back into their tips.

  “Three years later, he was on his half-year leave, between his apprenticeship and taking his Oath. There was no doubt that he would take the Oath, and I thought that it would only be for a short time, that it wouldn’t last after he took his Oath. I was wrong,” he said ruefully. “And I was wrong when I thought that the one person who would be safe from Julur was a webber,” he added bitterly. “Even when he died in an aircar crash, I didn’t guess. And I should have guessed—you can blame me for that,” he told Joshim.

  “I hardly took better care of him,” Joshim muttered. “Do you really think Julur will keep him alive, even now?”

  “Alive, yes,” Ayvar said. “But he’s still in danger. There are things Julur might do that couldn’t be reversed…

  “Tell me, Commander Rallya, did you come here hoping that I had the answers, or do you have some suggestions of your own?”

  “All I require from you,” Rallya said stiffly, “is a guarantee that you won’t interfere between the Guild and Julur. Which I assume I have, in view of your obsession with Rafe’s safety.”

  “Obsession? Yes, it could fairly be called an obsession,” Ayvar said, unruffled. “But you don’t have a guarantee. Not unless you can guarantee Lin’s safety in return.”

  “Nobody can do that,” Rallya objected.

  “Then I feel free to interfere. After all, there are other ways to obtain what I want. I could negotiate with Julur directly. Offer him my support against the Guild perhaps…”

  “You won’t do that,” Rallya said shrewdly. “You can’t afford to lose the Guild’s services any more than Julur can.”

  “The Guild isn’t irreplaceable,” Ayvar commented.

  “No, but could your Empire really survive the change?” Rallya challenged. “Do you think the F’sair would wait for you to build up an effective space force of your own? Are all your aristos so loyal that they wouldn’t make private treaties with the Guild, treaties that encouraged them to secede from the Empire?”

  “And you’d stand by and watch that happen?” Ayvar asked.

  “If Julur gets control of the Guild, neither of you will have a choice,” Joshim snapped. “Which is more important? Finding out who’s going to have the last word—and I would have thought it was obvious, Rallya; he’s had several thousand years more practice—or doing something to stop Julur?”

  “You’re right, Joshim.” Ayvar made a gesture of apology to him. “I’m afraid I find it difficult to resist a new challenge.” He repeated the gesture to Rallya. “You should be glad he isn’t wearing your face, Comma
nder. It’s disconcerting to be told off by your own double.”

  “He’s usually right,” Rallya muttered. “That’s what I like least about Webmasters.” Not that she was convinced that a few thousand years made so much difference, but there would be time to settle the point later.

  “Since you’ve no real intention of negotiating directly with Julur, even if he’d listen to you, which I doubt, what do you intend to do?” she asked directly.

  “Support you in regaining control of the Guild, and then use you as a lever to make Julur negotiate.” Ayvar’s face clouded. “He won’t bend to a threat to withdraw the Guild’s services from his Empire; he can afford to wait out a few hundred years of chaos. And he knows there’s a limit to what I will allow to happen to him. I won’t take his Empire from him.” He raised a hand to forestall Rallya’s protest. “What would you do with an Empire without an Emperor? Rule it yourself? Give it to me? Neither of us could hold it together, and if one Empire falls, they both do.

  “And what would you do with an Emperor without an Empire? He won’t retire to a backwater world to watch the flowers grow, and he won’t disappear gracefully off the edge of the map. And even if you could bring yourself to kill him, I couldn’t allow it.”

  Rallya scowled. It was uniquely obscene, the idea of killing a person who might otherwise have lived forever, the thought of destroying an unbroken thread of existence. And that was the reason the Empires were saddled with a pair of immortal fools. There was nothing that could be done with them, other than make them gods or Emperors. And if it was not done for them, they would do it themselves, like oil inevitably rising to the top of water. Or scum separating out, in Julur’s case.

  “If we can’t threaten to kill him, and we can’t threaten to take his Empire away, just how do we persuade him to give Rafe back and renegotiate his Oath?” she demanded.

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t threaten to kill him,” Ayvar corrected her. “If the Guild were to besiege Old Imperial, I wouldn’t be able to prevent you. I might protest convincingly from a safe distance, but that’s all I could do. And fear for his life is the one thing that will make him release Lin.”